Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Speaking of "Lost in Translation," last night I went to the Air concert at Roxy. Good show. Sold out. People standing outside with signs saying "Koupim Listky" (I'm buying tickets). The band was cute and dreamy and stoner-ish and French and one guy wore a black tie with a black shirt, and they played one of the songs they'd written for Sofia Coppola for "Lost in Translation."

Now here's the funny thing: It's a packed house, and standing next to me is a dowdy older woman dressed like a Czech mother-in-law. Not elderly by any means -- not the age at which you'd be obliged to give up your tram seat, but slowly approaching it. In any case she looked really, really out of place. At first I surmised that she was there to see her son or daughter in the opening band. Except there was no opening band. Later in the show, I saw her talking to a younger girl, about 15 or 16. So I figured that was her daughter, who'd dragged her mom along to the Air concert. I concocted a tale. They live in Liberec, and the kid listens to a lot of Air, and because Air plays the type of music that moms can get into, the mom got into it to. When Air came to Prague, the mom figured she'd take her kid to the concert for her birthday. Either that or the kid really, really wanted to go to the show, but the mom wouldn't let her go alone. I like the first version better.